Mother Teresa Has Anti-Abortion Answer At a National Prayer Breakfast in Washington Feb. 3, Mother Teresa of Calcutta delivered the most startling and bold proclamation of truth to power I have heard in my more than 30 professional years in Washington. Before an audience of 3,000 - that included the president and his wife, the vice president and his wife and congressional leaders, among others - the 83-year old nun, who is physically frail but spiritually and rhetorically powerful, delivered an address that cut to the heart of the social ills afflicting America. She said that America, once known for generosity to the world, has become selfish. And she said that the greatest proof of that selfishness is abortion. Tying abortion to growing violence and murder in the streets, she said, "If we accept that a mother can kill even her own child, how can we tell other people not to kill each other? . . . Any country that accepts abortion is not teaching its people to love, but to use any violence to get what they want." At that line, most of those in attendance erupted in a standing ovation, something that rarely occurs at these sedate events. At that moment, President Clinton quickly reached for his water glass, and Mrs. Clinton and Vice President and Mrs. Gore stared without expression at Mother Teresa. They did not applaud. It was clearly an uncomfortable moment on the dais. She then delivered the knockout punch: "Many people are very, very concerned with children in India, with the children of Africa where quite a few die of hunger, and so on. Many people are also concerned about all the violence in this great country of the United States. "These concerns are very good. But often these same people are not concerned with the millions who are being killed by the deliberate decision of their own mothers. And this is what is the greatest destroyer of peace today - abortion, which brings people to such blindness." What? Abortion destroys peace and causes blindness toward the sick, the hungry and the naked? Abortion leads to wars between nations? Of course it does, if life is regarded so lightly and its disposal becomes so trivial, so clinical and so easy. Why should people or nations regard human life as noble or dignified if abortion flourishes? Why agonize about indiscriminate death in Bosnia when babies are being killed far more efficiently and out of the sight of television cameras? Mother Teresa delivered her address without rhetorical flourishes. She never raised her voice or pounded the lectern. Her power was in her words and the selfless life she has led. Even President Clinton, in his remarks that followed, acknowledged she was beyond criticism because of the life she has lived in service to others. At the end, she pleaded for pregnant women who don't want their children to give them to her: "I am willing to accept any child who would be aborted and to give that child to a married couple who will love the child and be loved by the child." She said she has placed over 3,000 children in adoptive homes from her Calcutta headquarters alone. She has answered the question, "Who will care for all of these babies if abortion is again outlawed?" Now the question is whether a woman contemplating abortion wishes to be selfish or selfless, to take life or to give life.

Censorship is almost systematically the weapon of first resort for governments in uncertain political situations. So not only are the famous writers and bold journalists in danger; at every level of public and private life, the freedoms to think, read or write are denied. In the absence of a free press, other human rights abuses flourish unabated. Nothing is reported, criticized, questioned. The example of imprisonment, torture or execution imposes a further silence. A blindly obedient mob mentality is encouraged, driven by extremist religious or ethnic loyalties. The citizens do not know what is happening. Fear and ignorance permeate discussion.

He is wisest, who only gives, True to himself, the best he can: Who drifting on the winds of praise, The inward monitor obeys. And with the boldness that confuses fear Takes in the crowded sail, and lets his conscience steer.

Vane, young in years, but in sage counsel old, Than whom a better senator ne'er held The helm of Rome, when gowns, not arms, repelled The fierce Epirot and the African bold, Whether to settle peace, or to unfold The drift of hollow states hard to be spelled, Then to advise how war may, best upheld, Move by her two main nerves, iron and gold, In all her equipage; besides to know Both spiritual power and civil, what each means, What severs each, thou hast learned, which few have done: The bounds of either sword to thee we owe: Therefore on thy firm hand Religion leans In peace, and reckons thee her eldest son.